


Too Late

by SilverScribe



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/F, Hurt, Mentions of Blood, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, don't hate me, no fucking comfort here, pure angst, yes i really used that trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 03:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14511567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverScribe/pseuds/SilverScribe
Summary: Lapis finally returns home to Peridot, but everything isn't as she remembers it.Work inspired bythis piece of artcreated by mkfoodshops.Please note that I've chosen to not use archive warnings for this work, I'd advise you to check the tags if you're concerned about what that may imply. However if you want to avoid spoiling yourself skip the tags, I'd also avoid checking out the linked art until you've finished the fic as well.





	Too Late

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually write angst, you all can blame [mkfoodshops](https://mkfoodshops.tumblr.com/) for this one. :P Go check them out.

“Peridot! Dot where are you? Please answer me, Peri!” Lapis shouted into the fire-whipped wind as she struggled along the broken shoreline of Beach City. Ruin lay all around her, great glassed over craters in the sand flickered and danced with a morbidly beautiful light cast by the flames of burning wreckage and debris. Smoke and smoldering embers carried through the hot air, obscuring her vision, but amongst all the destruction and chaos what she found most unnerving was the silence.

A silence she desperately wanted to hear broken by her barn mate.

“Peridot! Peridot, if you can hear me please—Aaaah!” Lapis stumbled and fell as her foot caught on something sharp, and she went to her hands and knees in the sand. She gritted her teeth in frustration and dug her fingers into the shifting grains as she pushed herself up to continue her search, but a cool gust of wind off the ocean rose then, clearing away some of the smoke obscuring her view. What Lapis saw left her frozen where she knelt. It was the Crystal Temple.

What was left of it.

The great statue that made up the Temple was ruined. Four of its eight arms were gone entirely, ending in jagged breaks where they should have met the torso. The chest of the stone-wrought fusion was... melted; a great gaping wound of bubbled and disfigured stone where the chest gem should have been. And the head... the head had been separated from the ragged remnants of the neck and now lay at rest in the last two remaining hands of the statue.

Right where Steven’s house should have been.

“Steven…” Lapis breathed in a barely audible whisper, iron bands of panic tightening around her chest. She turned around and scrabbled furiously in the sand for what she had felt with her foot, sifting it through her fingers until she came across what she desperately hoped not to find.

Shards.

She knew the moment she touched them that they were gem shards, she could _feel_ it, as if the pieces were calling out to her. With trembling hands she held the shattered, rough pieces up to the light so she could see who they belonged to. Alabaster gleamed back at her, tiny rainbows pirouetting across the fragmented surface as the flickering flames all around her danced over the remains.

It was Pearl.

“Oh no,” Lapis whispered, bringing a hand up to cover her mouth. She dropped the shards where she’d found them and fell back on her palms as she scrambled away from the broken remnants of Pearl. Then she cried out again as her hand came down on something jagged and rough, when she looked down glittering fragments of purple twinkled back at her in the orange glow of the flames.

Amethyst.

Lapis staggered to her feet and continued to back away, eyes roving the beach as waves of denial washed through her mind at the reality spread before her. She found Ruby and Sapphire next. Shards of blue and red intermingled together, as if even when shattered they still couldn’t bear to be apart. Her breathing ragged, Lapis began to panic, terrified to continue searching but even more afraid to stop.

A sparkling glimmer of pink caught her eye just past where she’d found Garnet, and icy cold talons grabbed at her stomach. But what she found wasn’t the shattered remains of Steven’s gem. It was much worse.

It was Connie.

Or, what was left of her.

Lapis immediately turned and fell to her knees, hands over her face, unable to bear the sight. But that didn’t ease the image that had been seared into her mind. Connie lay there in the sand, the shattered remnants of her rose-tinted blade resting beside her. Her body was mangled and broken, blood soaked into the beach in a crimson stain beneath her, but her eyes were the worst part. They were open, staring unseeing towards the charred sky. But to Lapis, they were an accusation.

_Why weren’t you here?_

She screamed and lurched back to her feet in a staggering run, fleeing the carnage around her. “Peridot! Peridot please! I can’t—” and then she saw it and her breath was taken away. A short distance down the beach from where she’d found the others was a scattered collection of metal. Beams that had been bent and twisted to sharp points, large plates fused together by sheer pressure into makeshift shields; Lapis only knew of one gem who could do something like this.

“Peri?” she called weakly, hopefully, as she walked into the ring of twisted steel. “Are you here Dot?” Lapis barely breathed the words, refusing to accept that the answer could be anything other than _yes_. Peridot had to be okay, she had to be. The others might be… The others might have fallen but Peridot was brilliant, resourceful, if anyone could survive this it was—

Lapis abruptly found herself in the center of the haphazardly strewn alloys. She’d found Peridot.

Cracked and broken into a dozen glimmering pieces of green.

[Lapis fell to her knees.](https://mkfoodshops.tumblr.com/image/173517489369)

 

“ _You’re alone, no one could possibly know what that feels like! Oh wait, I do!”_

 

Gently, tenderly, with shaking hands Lapis collected Peridot’s shards and stared into them.

 

“ _We’re the same! Except… you don’t have to be alone.”_

 

She brought what was left of Peridot, what was left of her barn mate, up tightly against her chest as her whole body began to shake and tremble.

 

“ _Just one second, I wanna check and make sure Lapis is okay.”_

 

Lapis broke down with a whimper and a cascade of tears, she collapsed over her knees with her head pressed against the earth and Peridot clutched to her chest as she wailed her agony to the impassive destruction around her.

 

“ _I think we can win. I think you can win! Earth is our home now, isn’t it worth fighting for?”_

 

“I am not getting caught up in the middle of another war,” Lapis whispered the words like a curse. They had been… Those were the last words she’d ever said to Peridot. Memories raced through her mind, memories of all the time she’d spent with her. All the morps they’d made together, all the theories and talks they’d had about _Camp Pining Hearts_ , Peridot teasing her about her snoring, Peridot being there for her when one of her naps ended with her waking up screaming in a cold sweat.

Peridot being there for her… Peri had always been there for her, but where was Lapis when Peridot needed her? Where was Lapis when Peridot was fighting for her life?

Where was Lapis when Peridot died?

Lapis screamed. Lapis screamed and her self-hatred, rage and despair echoed out into the ocean before her. A massive wave, taller by far than even the Temple, rose up out of the sea in answer; it crashed down on top of her, drowning out her cry. She kept pushing the water, forcing it down harder against her form. She could feel the immense pressure on her back, could feel it crushing her, could feel her gem cracking.

She welcomed it.

* * *

 Lapis jolted upright from her spot on the cold metallic floor, the scream from her nightmare still echoing around the massive chamber of the Diamond Moon Base. She was shaking, pure panic surging through every facet of her form.

“Peridot…” she whispered, remembering what had happened in her dream. In an instant she summoned her wings and surged to the room’s center, to the large observation orb waiting there. She lay her trembling hands on the cool surface and it activated with a soft glow, focusing on Beach City.

For one petrified moment Lapis thought she’d see the vision from her dream, a burning beach scattered with ruin, but as the image came into focus and centered in on the target of her search she breathed a sigh of relief. Peridot was there, walking down the beach with Steven and Amethyst as the sun set over a tranquil ocean. She was there.

She was alive.

Lapis’ vision blurred as she sagged against the orb and drank in Peridot’s image. A part of her wanted to fly to her right now as fast as she could, to hold her and reassure herself that Peridot was alright. But another part of her, a terrified and _raw_ part of her, one she’d ignored for so long, couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t even entertain the thought of returning to Earth, of facing the Diamonds, of going through another war. Of enduring all that suffering again.

The two conflicting urges warred with each other in Lapis’ mind until she finally collapsed to her knees, tear streaked face pressed against the observation orb, sobs wracking her form.

“Peri… Peri I’m so sorry but I can’t. I can’t do it,” she whispered to the desolate room.

And she hated herself for it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Lapis doesn't get a lot of sleep anymore...
> 
> This piece was was beta read by the wonderful [realfakedoors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/realfakedoors)! It wouldn't be nearly as polished without them, go check them out. :D
> 
> Also here's a [lovely piece of art](https://mkfoodshops.tumblr.com/post/173517489369/lapis-abruptly-found-herself-in-the-center-of-the) from the very artist who inspired this fic. :D It's of the scene when Lapis first finds Peridot and is also linked in the fic above and the appropriate line. 
> 
> Yes, yes I used the "It's just a dream" trope I know. But I couldn't help it. Hope you enjoyed the work, and if you want to yell at me about it you can always find me on [tumblr](https://silverscribe87.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Also as always comments and constructive criticism are more than welcome. :)


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